OP: If you're talking about people like me, we never wanted endgame in particular. We wanted a power plateau. The power plateau has absolutely nothing at all to do with an end game. Saying that a power plateau is like endgame is like saying all of a Grand Theft Auto game from the moment you turn it on is endgame, when it clearly isn't.

We don't want a game where the outcome is constantly decided by stats, and where you win or lose because of your numbers, rather than because of your skill. That leads to a game where you grind for gear in order to win, because bigger numbers equal victory. What that means is that you're grinding for victory; Which is more commonly known as time > skill.

It gets exceedingly tiresome reading the same old "slippery slope" crying over and over again on the forums. It is not, and I cannot state this firmly enough, a valid logical progression. In order for the slippery slope fallacy to be true, you need to factually establish that each event does, indeed, lead to the proceeding event, ending eventually at your projected outcome. Since none of the events leading to massive gear power differentials are present nor in the works, you cannot say that adding ascended gear/legendary gear leads to the aforementioned power differential. In other words, there is absolutely no evidence pointing towards a traditional MMO gear creep system. All anyone has offered are prophetic predictions of "just you wait, I'm going to be right and everyone will be sorry!" Until there is more concrete evidence pointing towards gear creep (say, for instance, markedly more powerful gear, that takes a substantially longer time investment, than the legendary tier), no one can accurately predict the outcome. So, stop bleating on about the slippery slope because you look like a whinging infant.

At any rate, let's have a look at the gear situation objectively. Firstly, ANet implemented legendary weapons. They're technically a tier ahead of exotic weaponry in the current hierarchy and, therefore, would logically be more powerful. Now, apply that to armor. If legendary weapons exist, then is it not logical to assume legendary armor should/will exist, too? Furthermore, you've probably noticed the time-investment and (in the future) power jump between exotic and legendary gear. It would be handy if the differential was lessened, so as to preserve the small power jump between tiers. Wait a moment, isn't that what ascended gear is meant to do? I do believe it is. Since they're incrementally adding the mechanics to obtain ascended tier gear, the only place to obtain it is via the forge or from Fractals (which my guild affectionately calls CITIZENS). It is of the utmost importance to understand that this gear will be obtainable from other means. Once again, we do not know the difficulty/time investment of these methods yet, so we cannot speculate with any accuracy the results.

Finally, I'd like to ask you what exactly would ascended gear impact? Surely not general PvE. Your ability to tag event mobs isn't inhibited by your gear. I would know because I levelled a char from 60-80 via Plinx runs. Furthermore, its impact on W3 is minimal at best. Especially considering the focus on larger confrontations. Sure, individual fights do occur, and often, at that, but you're not going to all of a sudden start losing supply camps/towers/keeps because a zerg of better geared players showed up. There are no resists in this game and players are all scaled to 80 in W3, so please point out where your performance would be detrimentally impacted by a 2% stat increase. Finally, ascended gear has absolutely no impact on s/tPvP.

ANYWAYS, on to the topic at hand. I do believe there is an active and healthy endgame. The difficulty is pinpointing where exactly this lies, as it is unique to each and every player. I, personally, spread my endgame activities between Dungeons, s/tPvP, and W3. I do not think there is a lack of content, just a myopic appreciation and exploitation of the game's mechanics. At some point, I think people have to realize that maybe GW2 isn't for them. I've had multiple guildies return to Aion because they didn't enjoy the fact that they couldn't sit in an area and endlessly grind mobs to level efficiently. At the time I was quite frankly blown away, but if all you've played are Korean MMO Grindfests, then that is what you enjoy. GW2 is not this. I also think people are grossly understating the potential of Dungeons. GW1 had a very, very competitive and healthy speed clearing community. Admittedly, the rewards from the areas you typically farmed were rarer than those found in GW2s dungeons. However, it would be nice to see a return of this sort of mentality. The sheer number of build combinations that GW2 offers lends itself very well to theorycrafting, something which really shines when you wish to complete an area in the most expedient and efficient manner. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I think it's an important alternative that not many people have looked into yet.

TL;DR: I'd encourage you to read my post, if only to help create a healthy debate, but here's the shortened version anyways. The Slippery Slope is a fallacy. It is completely and utterly incorrect due to the absolute lack of evidence behind the arguments. Ascended gear is meant to bridge the gap between current exotic and current/future legendary gear. No more, no less. Lastly, there is a healthy endgame present, but it's up to each person to find what it is for them.

For the most part since the games launch, I've understood complaints people have made against the game (may not have agreed with all of them but i understood it.) but for the first time, I'm begging the community to shut the hell up and be thankful we get more stuff. You guys are literally the most unappreciative fanbase I've ever seen.

I don't see how this is any different than what the Black Lion Chests have always been like. The way they work is that for a certain number of gems, you get a random item from a list of known possibilities, and none of those possibilities will have any real world monetary value because gem and gold can't be converted back to real currency. I don't get why this has suddenly become a major issue, or why it's suddenly called "gambling" when I didn't ever hear it called that before.

I also don't see how people are feeling forced to buy gems. I played from levels 1-80 and finished my storyline without buying any gems. I leveled up easily just doing the standard content without farming or repeatedly grinding the same areas, and as a result I'm sitting on a good stack of gold and karma that I'm still deciding how to allocate. (Waiting for more pictures to be posted on the wiki to decide what I like best.) I even have a bunch of boosts sitting in my bank that I accumulated for free that I haven't used, and will probably just save them for an alt.

I guess I could have leveled faster or have even more stuff if I'd paid more money, but... the thing is, I actually enjoy playing the game. If I didn't, I wouldn't even be here. So it doesn't exactly seem like a hardship to get the things I want by earning them through gameplay - if the gameplay isn't fun for someone, then I don't understand why they're doing it at all, monetary alternatives aside.

I did buy a gem card to buy Halloween town clothes, but I did that with the holiday costumes in GW1, and I don't see a huge difference - I did it because I could afford it and I was okay with spending some money on something frivolous because I've been doing a good job with my budget lately. Had I not felt I could indulge myself by spending a little money on GW2, I'd still have plenty to do in the game for Halloween.

I don't say this out of superiority, but out of bafflement. From what I read on the forums, I kept assuming that to reach higher levels I would have to start shelling out money, but it never happened. I kept assuming ANet was going to start bugging me to spend money, but aside from one fairly innocuous e-mail, I haven't even heard from them about it. The cash shop doesn't even affect my gameplay, and I don't see any reason to assume that suddenly it will.

Nothing from the BLCs is a need. It's a want. People have every right to disagree with how the gem store content is distributed, of course. (I honestly don't care enough to disagree.) I don't get why that disagreement is being equated to accusing ANet of greed and wrongdoing, and predicting the future ruin of the game, though.

They made a choice some would prefer they hadn't made, but I'm just not seeing a calamity here.

beadnbutter32, on 22 October 2012 - 04:42 PM, said:

Look at the resources going into this vs the resources going into fixing bugged dynamic events. No contest.

This isn't really an accurate comparison, for several reasons. For one thing, it's probably not even the same people working on these things.

More importantly, though, adding gem shop content is active and fixing bugs is reactive. They could have been working on Halloween stuff for months whenever they had some free time, but they can't do that with bugs because they can only squash bugs after they become apparent. Content (paid or free) can be generated in advance at the team's convenience; fixing bugs cannot.

Also, fixing broken computer code is almost always more difficult than generating fresh code. Often it's unclear where the problem is coming from, so it's not a simple matter of going in and correcting a known issue. If programmers aren't careful, bug fixes can break other things, and they need more specialized testing before they go live.

I understand that a lot of people aren't very familiar with programming (honestly, I'm not a programmer myself, but I have a number of friends who worked for a different MMO made by another company, so I've heard their side of it.) I totally get why all this is hard to understand. But honestly, it's an apples to oranges comparison.

Arenanet's message has been very consistent over the last few years. Items from the cash shop will give NO substantial gameplay advantage over those available through the investment of time. By putting in TIME and converting GOLD --> GEMS, you could get any item you want in the game. Whether that is worth the investment of in-game gold to you, or if you like other skins better, that decision is up to you.

To think that a $60 box purchase of the game is all that is needed to support development and infrastructure costs of a game with a life expectancy of several years (GW1 is at 8 I believe) is simply delusional. Arenanet doesn't force you to pay a subscription to play the game. You can play as often or as little as you like. You can ride the coatails of others who don't mind paying a little bit in the gemstore to help keep the game going and not pay a dime more to Arenanet while still enjoying all the patches, content additions, and holiday events that in the rest of the industry, are typically payed for content.

If there is ONE critique you could really pin to Arenanet, it is their mantra of releasing the game "when its ready". Unless you are in the software industry though, "when its ready" is really hard to define. Bugs will exist, especially in an environment of this magnitude. They had beta weekend events, stress tests, etc, but they probably could have used a few more. All things considered though, the release went by a lot smoother than many other games. I've definitely gotten my money's worth many times over.

The hypocrisy in accusing Arenanet of being greedy money grubbers and a bunch of shills because you want all the content delivered to you on YOUR grounds is astounding. As its been said before, Arenanet is a business, and needs to make money to keep up development and infrastructure. People need to make a living. Just wait until you're out in the real world working for a paycheck. And if you're there already, your ignorance is baffling.

I was absolutely destroying this stress test. There wasn't a single person I couldn't 1v1. A bad match is when I wasn't top player, heck I even beat a couple people 1v2.

To be honest, people really need to learn to dodge properly. Way to often I see a person immediately blow all his/her dodges just to avoid my basic attacks. Now I don't even use skills for the first few seconds when fighting a person, I know they will blow all their powerful skills as soon as possible and try to burst me down. Dodge their burst attempts, then I use my own skills while they are left running around waiting on cooldowns.

Once people figure out the game, things will start feeling more balanced in my opinion. Comparing this to another game, 99% of the players in sPvP are like level 5's players in League. They know enough to fight but not enough to be effective.

I have to add this to counter all of the incredible childish QQ that's going on in this forum. Most Thieves I've talked to in-game today loved the class also. I think people have small issues, but nothing like what's represented in this forum.

I'm owning in 1v1. I'm loving it in PvE. In larger WvWvW we definitely fill a certain role (and that might not be everyone's desire, but it's a powerful role... picking off the fools who step out of the pack, etc).

I think props to the designers, they've made a fun, interesting, and extremely challenging (but rewarding) class.

While I can see where you are coming from, you are wrong. The Mesmer will not get big reworks, why? Because it is fine. The core of the Mesmer itself is fine.

The "broken" state is commonly identified, or I will put in my own words, as the "make and break" paradox. The problem is that for one big part of the Mesmer, the phantasms, are able to be shattered and killed as easily as the deceiving clones. And thus, comes the my name for it.

Make is the creation of the phantasm, which it's duty is to supply large amounts of damage/utility in return for a long cooldown.
Break is the destruction of the phantasm, which can be shattered and killed as easily as a clones, which do not reach 1/10th of a phantasm's ability to wreck havoc.

However, to say that this mechanic is completely broken would be foolish to the point of stupidity. Simply put, this class mechanic can be wired to make the most effectiveness out of shattering, even if it is phantasms.

To sum up what I've currently said, it is basically a paradox; why would you make only to break? The core, the "clones and phantasms", are completely countered by what should instead promote and advance the mechanic; the "shatter". The phantasm, which you create to fufill a certain niche, whether it be damage, conditions, or protection, should not be able to be killed as easily and quickly as the clones, which you create for no particular reason (other than to decieve), or even not by your own will? Simply put, the cost-gain effectiveness is broken. There is no reason to use a shatter when you could have your phantasm put out more damage, is there?

This is what most people think. This version of thinking, in my highly biased opinion, is stupid to the utmost degree.

Shattering has been buffed. It has been buffed to the point that the damage is significant now. The cost-gain effectiveness now by most standards is even; you sacrifice continued damage for a spike of damage. However, the problem is that the phantasms shattering gives the same damage as the clones shattering. This is only balance; if the phantasms shattering gave a significant more amount of damage than clones shattering, phantasms are basically killing their own purpose. Why would I even want a phantasm out when I can just shatter it? It will turn phantasms into shatter fodder. Phantasms are meant to come out for sustained damage or utility. To shatter them means you either need the spike, you no longer need them, or you are forced to as the enemy will kill it before it can fufill it 's purpose; in which in all three situations, shattering is only rational.

However, this is only half the problem; another is that phantasms can be overwritten by clones, which is seen as a huge problem, as phantasms are obviously more significant than clones.
Clone-generating skills against your own will such as Ether Bolt or that dodge trait which name I've forgotten to overwrite phantasms is obviously a mistake, or a bug right? No one in their right mind would rather have a clone than a phantasm.
Wrong.

I have to congratulate ANET for raising the level on the Mesmer's complicated play. It is basically forcing not only the enemy, but yourself to make tough decisions in the heat of battle. The result is a more exciting and complicated battle process. Do not use the 3rd fire of Ether Bolt or it'll overwrite the Illusionary Swordsman you've had out, right? Instead, you can switch to the sword and pull off a blurred frenzy combo, or shatter and continue to push out different clones. Should you decoy to escape, or fight with your three phantasms in a battle that could go either way? If you decoy, you escape to cap a point. If you fight, you may either win and then cap a point, creating a win-win situation, or lose and die. You see how it works now? Overwriting is basically forcing you to make decisions, instead of just mindlessly pushing out clones, not even worrying about your precious phantasms. Shattering is a brilliant mechanic, to make your clones into bombs instead of just being there to deceive; and don't say "good players will never be deceived!". They will. If they even spend one second thinking the clone is you and not that one second actually attacking YOU, you have gotten use out of that clone. It has fulfilled it's purpose, in which you can just turn it into a painful bomb. If shatters were to teleport or move significantly faster, I wouldn't complain;however, I don't see that happening. They do a large amount of damage so having them be instant would be slightly unfair, wouldn't it?

Also, other class mechanics are not perfect either. Engineer's "f" skills are completely worthless in my opinion. Rangers too. The only completely brilliant class mechanic that I actually think is perfect right now is the Elementalist. Attunement changing as a class mechanic is simple, beautiful, brilliant. You depend on it. It's useful no matter what the situation. You don't question it's effectiveness. However, not everything can be perfect; the Mesmer's class mechanic is no where near it, but it's pretty damn good and in the hands of a smart player, will be devastating.

Sorry if in some areas I seem stupid or like I'm blabbing, it's 4:AM and I'm sort of drunk.

Introduction
This FAQ explains what you need to know about gear and how its attributes are distributed. I'll predominantly aim this at level 80 equipment as we can talk about all equipment rarities. The reason for this FAQ is:

To explain how attributes are distributed at level 80

To answer some common misconceptions

Illustrate the methods and difficulty of obtaining equipment

If not stated, the tables in this FAQ are from the GW2 wiki or self made.

**Warning** - Long read, there is a summary section at the end.

BasicsEquipment Rarity
Each item has a quality which indicates the rarity or nature of the base modifications available on the item. The following is the rarity in ascending order:

Junk = Gray

Common =White

Fine =Blue

Masterwork =Green

Rare =Yellow

Exotic =Orange

Ascended = Pink

Legendary =Purple

Attribute AllocationIs all gear the same?
No, as you level all gear increases in terms of stats and defence rating.

At any given level, is all gear the same?
This is where there are many misconceptions. For any given level, attributes and defence ratings are not the same UNLESS they are the same rarity also. Here's an example of two great swords at level 80 (Image from reddit poster ardikus).

The rest of this post will explain why they are not the same and what to expect at level 80 in terms of gear and how its stats are distributed. The last section will contain the known methods of obtaining maximum stat gear.

Why does gear provide stats in PvE but not PvP?
Answer? It's a trick question. PvP gear has stats... but not every bit of gear has it, in fact only two do. The amulet and the jewel that goes in it.Have you ever wondered why AN made amulets so powerful? It's obvious with a bit of thought. Amulets are there to replace stats on the rest of your gear. It would be a pain to have 6 gear slots, 5 trinket slots, a back pack slot AND weapon slots all with stats - especially if you want to change your build. Most people know roughly what they want, whether it be power, crit or condition build,What AN have done is simply taken all the stats off of 'gear' and put it into one concise place... the Amulet. In BWE 1 they also had ring/ earring slots but quite rightly realised that they didn't need them and instead amalgamated those slots from 5 items with 25/15/15 stats to one jewel for the amulet with 125/75/75 stats (i.e. same stats overall).

So what about PvE?
Well AN have simply broken down the stats you got from amulets and put them back on armour, weapons and accessories. There will be no +798/569/569 amulet, those stats now belong on gear, trinkets etc.If you now think with the mentality that the super powerful amulet has been split amongst gear, then you'll realise different builds concentrate on different skills. Condition builds don't need power, so the exotic great sword in the image would be ideal. While heavy dd builds would like the stat choices of the other great sword. Bottom line, not all builds will focus on the same stats so just because a weapon doesn't have power does it mean it's useless.

Therefore, how can we compare two items if they have different stats?
Easy for weapons, as you can also look at its damage stat (weapon strength). Max weapon strength for a great sword in PVP is 995-1,100. It's logical PvE will be the same and as you can see Exotics max weapon strength is 995-1,100. Rares only have a max weapon strength of 882-975.

Ok, so what about stats for non-weapons, can you compare the two? Yes, you can look at the defence rating for the piece or because AN loves symmetry you can look at the stats. Don't look at how they're distributed (in terms of power, precision etc) but look at the numbers.

Exotic 128/128/179

Rare113/113/158

Each stat is approximately 13% higher on the exotic than the rare.

What if I want an Exotic but don't like how the stats are distributed?
Not all weapons/ armour will be the same. There will be different exotics where one might have power/ precision/ condition damage, another has power/ vitality/ toughness and so forth. The bottom line is all exotics will be distributed in a 128/128/179 manner for 2-Handed weapons at L80.Similarly almost all rare 2-Handers at level 80 will have their 3 stats in a 113/113/158 manner. Masterworks will be closer to 100/100/140 (i.e. 13% less powerful etc).

How many attributes does gear have?
At level 1 all gear has only one attribute. As you level up it increases to three at level 80. There will be some exception where level 80 gear has four stats - these pieces of gear usually have a non-primary attribute as the fourth stat at the expense of lowering the other three primary attributes.e.g.

To compensate for the crit damage bonus to weapon B, it's vitality and toughness stats were reduced. However, AN have reduced them proportionately to so that both weapons have equal "power" overall. This does not mean A will hit as hard as B.Instead, add all the attribute points in weapon A (it comes to 435) and weapon B (comes to 375 + 5% crit damage). AN value the 5% crit damage to be equivalent to 50 primary attribute points.

Edit: As has been pointed out, in terms of literal numbers although AN is fairly consistent, they don't necessarily rely on objective evidence to balance their game but subjective evidence such as player feedback/ internal testing plays a role.For instance, the celestial amulet has a total stat point of 1704 + 15% crit. The Berserker's amulet meanwhile has a total stat point of 1651 + 15% crit. Thus one amulet has 53 extra stat points so gives you more bang for your buck. However, very few players will ever pick the celestial amulet as specialising in a few stats seems to be more beneficial than spreading them out. AN have obviously 'buffed' the amulet to offer more incentive, that's my take on it.Wildclaw points out crit damage is worth more points/ percent on amulets than jewels. I again think AN have done this based upon subjective player feedback. Who wants 1% crit damage bonus at 80. Seems rather low. At the same time, AN once had 31% crit damage bonus on their amulets, that seemed rather high. So it looks like AN are tweaking numbers for balance.

The last thing Wildclaw points out is something which on paper looks better than it should. Most jewels provide 125/75/75 distribution = 275 total stat points. Interestingly the Rampager jewel provides 125/75/45/45 = 290 stat points. It is effectively providing 15 free points. Again this is probably from feedback AN got that having 2 low stats of 37.5 wasn't enough incentive and they changed it.One has to remember AN only added vitality as a fourth stat since BWE2. This was almost certainly due to the fact the squishy classes (Thief and Elemetalist) had low base health pools and defence. Thus they were struggling to obtain high damage builds without 12k healths in BWE1. So AN buffed the power jewellery with vitality so these damage builds could have an extra 3k health.To add to all of this, if we look at runes we can see divinity rune offer the best bang for your buck in terms of overall stat points. Most 6 set runes have 205 total stat points and a 6th set ability. The divinity rune have 240 stat points but also 18% crit damage. The latter provides more crit + damage than any other 6 set rune. AN have most likely done this based upon their internal testing but it is a interesting point to bear in mind.Most weapons will only have 3 stats at 80 but remember this:

Weapons have stats to represent the stats taken from amulets. Whenever you are picking gear, the sum total of all the stats on all pieces of gear is equivalent to one amulet. Yes that includes the weapon and accessories. In fact weapons make up almost 25% of an amulet!

Do all pieces of gear have stats?
In a nutshell, yes. There are 12 main pieces that contribute: 6 equipment slots, 5 trinket slots and your weapon. If you have 2 weapon sets, it's the one you are wielding. Below I've provided an image of a level 35 Asura in cultural armour. In it I have included the caption for the amulet and to act as a reference, the chest piece.As you can see, amulets have stats but they are significantly reduced compared to PvP

So all exotic gear has a 179/128/128 distribution?
No! Only 2 Handed exotics have that distribution. Below is what other pieces of exotics have at level 80.

2-H Weapon = 179/128/128

1-H Weapon = 90/64/64

Head = 45/32/32

Shoulder = 34/24/24

Chest = 101/72/72

Hands = 34/24/24

Legs = 67/48/48

Feet = 34/24/24

Rings = 67/48/48

Earrings = 56/40/40

Amulet = 90/64/64

Backpack = 22/16/16*

*Note all numbers in red are estimates (based upon up scaling of rare level backpack) as no exotic backpack has been seen yetSource for the exotic Jewellery stats: http://www.gw2db.com...ysocola-jewel-sAs you can see, the sum total of the weapon plus equipment slots make one amulet.That is if you add all 6 equipment slots (head, shoulder, chest, glove, leg, boot), 5 trinket slots (Amulet, 2x Rings, 2x Earrings) and the main weapon (either two 1 handed weapons OR one 2 handed weapon) you get roughly 798/569/569, the left over stats are meant to reflect the jewel which goes into the amulet.So you may have to rethink that 'precision' sword as it will eat into your stat allocation elsewhere

Ok, so all gear at level 80 will have the same attribute allocation setup if they are from the same rarity?
Yes!!! So all exotic axes at level 80 will have a 90/64/64 distribution while rare axes at 80 will be 79/57/57.The difference between exotics will be how the attributes are set up?Exactly, so some exotic swords will be power/precision/condition damage while others are vitality/toughness/healing. But both swords will have a 90/64/64 distribution.

So exotic gear is always better than other gear?
Yes with one huge caveat, that is both items must be of the same level. A level 70 exotic helm is not necessarily better than an 80 masterwork helm. You should only compare items of the same rarity and level for true comparisons.From a pure personal point of view, I found on average for any piece of equipment I found, each level of rarity is equivalent to 2-3 levels.e.g. A green level 10 power sword was as good as a blue level 13 sword which was as good as a white level 15 sword.

Edit: The new gear level Ascended will be the max tier set.

Obtaining GearCan I get all gear rarities from level 1?No, see the following:

How difficult is it to get level 80 exotic gear?
It depends on play time and the method of choice. Most exotic pieces run at 2-3g. For a typical player this is a couple of hours of gold farming per piece. Below I go into depth about total times.

Dungeon Tokens
Each dungeon has its own unique tokens. Going the dungeon route path, it will cost you:

2-Hander = 390 tokens

1-Hander (main hand) = 300 tokens

1-Hander (off hand) = 210 tokens

Head = 180 tokens

Shoulder = 210 tokens

Chest = 330 tokens

Glove = 180 tokens

Leg = 300 tokens

Feet = 180 tokens

Total (6-Piece (Full) Set) = 1380 tokens

Total (2-H + Full Set) = 1770 tokens

Total (Main + Off Hand + Full Set) = 1890 tokens

Dungeon tokens are obtained by completing explorable mode runs of each dungeon. Each dungeon on nets 60 tokens for each completed explorable mode run for first run of the day. Thats 180 tokens a day. The dungeons have a DR (diminishing returns) system where if run too quickly, subsequent runs will net lower tokens amount. The tokens are character bound so repeating the dungeon on an alt for the first time will net 60 tokens provided you have allowed sufficient time for DR to have worn off - this is usually 1-2 hours.

If we want a full set of level 80 exotic gear we would need to run:1380/60 = 23 Dungeon runs

For a 2 handed weapon we would need to run:390/60 = 6.5= 7 runs

For a main and off hand we would need to run:510/60= 8.5= 9 runs

A person who wants a full set of exotics and a main and off hand from the same dungeon vendor would need to do 30-32 dungeon runs.

WvW

For those wondering, badges of honours are rewards dropped by opposing players, mobs and from keep sieges. They may often be concealed in loot bags.

Head = 260 Badges of Honour

Shoulder = 229 Badges of Honour

Chest = 312 Badges of Honour

Glove = 188 Badges of Honour

Leg = 292 Badges of Honour

Feet = 208 Badges of Honour

Total (6-Piece (Full) Set) = 1489 Badges of Honour

How hard is it to get badges of honour?From a typical 1hr hectic WvW play the average player will get 10-20 badges depending on luck and remembering to loot corpses too!Being optimistic, at 20 badges/hour that means:1489/20 = 74.45= 75 hours.

Crafting
When I initially made this thread I stated at this time we had no evidence to say what exact role crafting plays in making exotics. Nirgal though kindly pointed me in the direction of a few hidden pages in GW2DB.I'll link one inscription and one insignia.Valkyrie Ancient Inscription - http://www.gw2db.com...ed:created-fromValkyrie Gossamer Insignia - http://www.gw2db.com...amer-insignia-s. Since going live crafted items have been a main source of players gearing up on exotics. They cost around 2-3g per piece and are readily available from the TP.

But if they're much easier to get than the other exotics why bother getting the other exotics?
The most likely reason is for different skins. All the base level 80 exotic set looks like this:

A lot of people will find them unappealing and thus hunt the other exotics for skins.

Why have exotic dungeon skins which look the same as the rare skins when you can just transmute a rare skin over a crafted exotic?
This is a mute question now, AN obviously saw this error and now all rare gear from dungeon vendors have a boring singular look and not the dungeon armour look.

What stats can I get?

I said all exotic gear has the same total power i.e. all chest pieces would be 101/72/72 etc. Well, GW2 uses 8 stats on it's PvE gear that we are aware of:

Condition Damage

Critical Damage

Healing Power

Magic Find

Power

Precision

Toughness

Vitality

Using GW2DB we can see (also seen in earlier crafting) there are only 7 different Insignias/ inscriptions:

Berserker's = Crit Damage/ Power (main)/ Precision

Explorer's = Magic Find (main)/ Power/ Precision

Knight's = Power/ Precision/ Toughness (main)

Carrion = Condition Damage (main)/ Power/ Vitality

Rampager's = Condition Damage/ Power/ Precision (main)

Valkyrie = Criti Damage/ Power (main)/ Vitality

Cleric's = Healing Power (main)/ Power/ Toughness

*New* Crafted L80 Jewellery Exotic

Chrysocola Jewellery: Condition Damage (main)/ Power/ Vitality

Beryl Jewellery: Power (main)/ Crit Damage/ Vitality

Coral Jewellery: Precision (main)/ Condition Damage/ Power

Emerald Jewellery: Precision (main)/ Toughness/ Power

Opal Jewellery: Magic Find (main)/ Power/ Precision

Ruby Jewellery: Power (main)/ Crit Damage/ Precision

Sapphire Jewellery: Healing (main)/ Power/ Toughness

This wiki is a good start for further info:http://wiki.guildwar...iki/InscriptionSo crafted exotic items at 80 will have one of the above eight stat sets.However, there are eight variables which come in threes meaning there are at least 56 distinct combinations. If only eight are covered here, what about the rest? Where is the soldier set (power/ toughness/ vitality)?

Basically, the other exotics will make up some of the remaining stat combinations. You must also remember you could have one 2H exotic with 179/128/128 power/precision/condition damage which is different from a 2H exotic with 179/128/128 condition damage/power/precision. In the former power is the main stat while the latter has condition damage. So there are actually more than 56 combination of stats.That being said you can expect the 'other' methods of obtaining exotics to have skins you may want also. Whether they are worth the time to grind or not is up to you. I am a little surprised that the soldier set isn't one of the crafted sets but I guess it will be one of the more desirable ones. It's also intriguing that all the crafted sets have power.

Karma
Karma can be exchanged for exotic weapons at any of the high priest temples in Orr and by the vendor near the Arah entrance. To gain access to these vendors your server must be in control of the temple. Each piece costs 42k karma. Below is an image (produced by dulfy user Blazer) of which stats each temple has. Note there are currently no exotic weapons which can be with karma.

Mystic Forge

The mystic forge can prodcue exotic gear. It can produce this via set ways and random ways. The random method involves throwing in 4 items of the same rarity. To get a guaranteed exotic if you throw 4 exotics in you will get a different exotic. If you throw 4 rares in you have a 20% chance of getting an exotic item out. You must throw the same type of rares to get that type of gear e.g. 4 greatswords for a greatsword. Throwing 3 greatswords + 1 hammer = random weapon.

The set recipe is for weapons only at this time but produces some of the most prestigious skins, some on par with legendaries.

What is this?
A new gear rarity introduced in the November update with an 8% stat improvement over exotics and the ability to use infusion slots.

How do I get it?
The Nov update will only introduce jewellery and back slots but the items are obtained from the mystic forge using items obtained from the fractal of the mists dungeons. Whether all the components come from the new dungeon or not is not yet known.

Why a gear treadmill?
AN have come out and said they do not expect there to be any other armour rarities introduced in the foreseeable future. The main reason for there introduction was 2 fold:

1. They want to introduce infusion slots to the armour - these slots allow infusion items to go in which are designed to aid damage reduction/ damage increase etc against the bosses in the new dungeon.

2. They felt there was a gap between exotics and legendaries that needed to be filled. By this, they mean time. A full set of exotic can be ground out 2-3 days, a legendary will take 2-3 months. AN wanted an item players (specifically the more hardcore) strive towards which falls in-between the two.

So why not just upgrade exotics?
The main reason I feel is you'll always have the easier exotics to obtain (crafted ones). Having such items in the game means you cannot fill the 'time discrepancy' of their attainment with them. If you say well those armour pieces shouldn;t have infusion slots and only the harder exotic pieces should then you have introduced a 2 tier exotic system.

But why the stat increase?
The main reason is if you are going to make this the 'best-in-slot' item then there has to be some differentiation between exotic and it if people are going to put 'considerable' more effort to attain them. Remember, these items are likely going to need weeks to get each as that's the time gap in gear attainment the game currently has. To drive players to go for a new gear system needs some incentives beyond aesthetics.

All in all, I think this was an oversight by AN and ascended gear should have been in game from the start. They are simply trying to fix that issue by introducing them now. They know they have gone back on their promise of no gear treadmill but at the same time they felt without doing this they could not expand the game to forfil content for the more hardcore. Also many casual players have completed their exotic sets and are about to hit the legendary wall - potentially months of grind for nothing. This set allows AN to fill that void, offers more content and the infusion design (though many regard as lazy) is a tried and tested method to keep players playing.

For those with legendary weapons, they will be ungraded to ascended stats in the future.

Summary

All level 80 gear is not the same

Exotic Gear WAS the max level gear in terms of stats - replaced by Ascended gear on 15th Nov 2012

PvE gear is designed by breaking up the stats of the PvP 798/569/569 amulet and putting it back on gear

All level 80 exotic gear will have the same "total attribute" points but different gear will have different attribute allocations e.g one exotic glove is 34/24/24 in power/precision/vitality while another is 34/24/24 in toughness/vitality/healing

Edit 3: Exotics can be crafted, but what does this mean? Large new section.

Edit 4: Amended the summary to reflect new info.

Edit 5: Added what attributes belong to the known exotic dungeon sets.

Edit 6: Hopefully my final edit, added a disclaimer section just to emphasise all the above info is fact or logic based on evidence. However, it is by no means a 'definitive' faq.

Edit 7: Legendary items are now purple in colour. Credit to Beorn the Berserker

Edit 8: Added 2 sections, one to take into account that in PvP not everything is 100% equal in stat terms (I knew this before but as someone's picked up on it I'll explain why I thing AN have deviated slightly from there normal way (this part will be a hypothesis). Also I am going to amend the skill points obtained in WvW resets because the last 5 times we've played the game, they have not reset.

Edit 11: Now have accurate data on exotic jewellery so have updated info on how much stats they give - it's slightly more than I predicted but this is expected as I did not take into account the jewel which goes into the amulet. Also included new section on what stats the different crafted jewellery give.

I don't understand why people make such a big deal out of one known team beating another one. The game is in beta, we played to test the game and find potential bugs.

We played the new map for the first time in a beta weekend, and it seems to put an emphasis on the 4v4 fight in mid at start. Our lineup was never designed to be strong in 4v4 or big fights, as the other maps are different than that.
We had good 1v1 & 2v2 strength and also high burst, which is important to capture points quickly or to get last hits on forest NPCs, but it wasn't really helpful in that map.
What we were lacking was strength in group fights.

All of our games on that map ended either 500-150 or 150-500. This doesn't mean that one team is 3x as good as the other one, but that it is very hard to comeback if you lose the initial fight. If you win mid, you can easily defend all points by moving out quickly, the map is very small and you can reach nodes in a short amount of time.
Here you can see one video of our PoV on the new map, against another top team, Team Legacy. This game was a mirror matchup, which means we used the same classes: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHyd3OElKJ4

I also want to point out that Team Paradigm has contributed many helpful videos and guides for the community in the past. We made all our information available on the public. Of course, this is a weakness in a game where builds and the metagame (information) are so important, because any other team can see our exact builds, find weaknesses and try to counter them. However, especially in beta, we feel its more important to share good builds and strategies rather than to keep them secret for personal advantage.

In the end, I simply want to congratulate SS on beating us. I watched your videos and you had indeed great teamplay and synergy and definately deserved the wins. Keep up the good work, and we hope that the game keeps heading into the right direction to become an esport thats very enjoyable to watch and play!

Thanks for the congratulations, and thank you guys for the matches. However, it isn't like we made a comp to be very strong at 4v4's specifically either, in fact we run these on Forest and Khylo and it splits well either way. In fact, I would say overall it's just a balanced comp and works well in most situations. It's not like we came up with some super new gimmick builds to take advantage of the new map, we just ran builds that we formulated from last BWE to now.

Also, it is highly insulting that you would throw out that you guys have been posting things for the community and putting your builds out there as if we would directly try to counter them. We haven't even been keeping track of any of your content and didn't even know what builds you were bringing to the table. We ran a loose comp of what we usually bring. In fact, it's not the only build we run, we have 6 people so our comps get thrown around a lot. Also, if you want to say that, we've posted our videos on our youtube channels as well in the past. Not that they have garnered as much attention has yours.

Again, thank you for the congratulations and the matches, we will continue to work hard and hope you guys do too. We hope to see you guys again sometime soon come release.